


Shine Forever

by Serenade



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Ghosts, Immortality, M/M, Post-Nirnaeth Arnoediad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 13:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13571097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/pseuds/Serenade
Summary: Fingon makes his farewells to Maedhros. Or so he thinks.





	Shine Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/gifts).



Fingon never saw the blow that killed him.

He was aware, dimly, of his guards falling around him, of screams and then silence. But all his focus was on the enemy towering above him: the Balrog with the great black axe, volcanic heat shimmering between them.

Fingon lifted his sword again and again to meet the torrent of blows. Then a bright lash of flame wrapped his chest from behind, choking the breath from his lungs, searing scars into his armour.

 _Another Balrog,_ he had time to think. _Are you so afraid of me?_

The fiery whip dragged him to his knees. The sword fell from his hand.

***

The archway of light loomed before Fingon, filling all his vision. He knew that beyond it lay the Halls of Mandos. It beckoned him. No, more than that. It summoned him.

He knew he had to face judgment. He knew he had to find rest. But he owed other duties, and they summoned him too.

"No," he said, and "No" again, and finally, "Not yet."

***

Fingon came back to himself, hovering above his own body. A fallen banner draped him like a shroud, its blue and silver slowly seeping through with red. He stared, utterly dismayed. All around him was the dreadful stillness of an abandoned battlefield: corpses piled like wreckage, and crows starting to circle.

He looked down at his own hands. He was translucent, drifting like a patch of moonlight, no substance to his form. He was a spirit loosed from its body.

This was not what he meant to achieve. What happened to those like him? There were legends of haunted places, where tormented voices lured the unwary to their doom. Here was bloodshed enough to make it a place of nightmares. But this was not where he belonged.

He knew where he had to go. There was one person always he was drawn to find: even beneath darkened skies, across icy wastes, and beyond the highest mountain walls. Even now, from the other side of death.

***

Maedhros sat alone in a shadowed room, a goblet of wine and several bottles before him. His hair was an unbound tangle, and dark circles ringed his eyes. His metal hand gripped the goblet. His living hand held a scrap of ribbon, stroking it slowly. It was badly scorched, but glints through the black showed that it had once been gold.

Fingon ached to see him like this, grieving the death of his hopes. He doubtless blamed himself for their defeat, and Fingon was not there to comfort him. He floated closer, as though mere proximity could bridge the divide between living and dead.

Maedhros let out a choked cry, nearly tipping back his chair as he stood. He stared directly at Fingon, pale as death.

 _You can see me?_ Fingon said, astonished. But though his throat moved, no sound emerged from it. He was abruptly reminded that he was but a spirit, and he had been unwise to come here.

He backed away, but Maedhros took a step forward. "Don't go! Please." 

Fingon stopped. He had never been able to deny Maedhros anything.

Maedhros reached for him. His hand rippled through Fingon, scattering his atoms like smoke. Maedhros yanked back, clearly horrified. Fingon looked down. His spirit form coalesced again, like water settling. _It's all right,_ he told Maedhros. _You can't hurt me._

Maedhros locked his hands together, as though to resist further temptation. His eyes did everything his hands wished to, mapping every inch of Fingon hungrily. He murmured, "If this is a dream, let me never wake."

Fingon had thought it cruel to be parted without chance of farewell. But this would be the harder parting. He tried to push his heart into his smile, to send all the love and strength he possessed to Maedhros.

He traced his hands lightly over Maedhros, a caress that he meant with everything he had, even if it did not connect. Eventually, carefully, Maedhros responded in kind, hovering his hands over Fingon, as though stroking him the way he used to offer him comfort. Slowly, they moved closer, until they stood palm to palm: between them a sliver of air, between them the chasm of eternity. 

Maedhros drew in a deep breath, no longer looking so wrecked. A steady heartbeat. A measure of calm in his eyes. With a slow curl of his fingers, he joined their hands. A pulse of energy arced between them.

Startled, Fingon stepped back, but Maedhros stepped forward. Or rather, his spirit did, following Fingon and their linked hands. His body fell back into the chair, limp and unmoving.

Fingon let out a horrified gasp. He tried to disengage. But Maedhros held fast. "Don't leave me. I am lost if you leave me."

"What are you doing?" Fingon said. "Maedhros, you'll die!"

Maedhros shook his head. "We were betrayed. It should have been me. Not you. Never you."

"Don't say that." He held Maedhros, knowing he should let go. "We planned this together. I chose the risk. Your brothers need you. Our people need you."

Maedhros drew him close. "You are the best of us. You always have been."

"I came back to find you. I'll always come back to find you." Fingon embraced him, spirit joining spirit, merging together, like water or like flame. It was a union not possible in life, one long slow shared heartbeat. At the last, he kissed Maedhros, and then gently, ever so gently, sent him falling back into his body.

Maedhros blinked to wakefulness, alive and breathing. But some link between them endured, and their thoughts to each other were clear as speech.

"I failed you twice. Not a third time," Maedhros said. "You are my king and my heart. I will not be sundered from you."

Fingon smiled sadly. "What would you have me do? I am nothing but a spirit now. Shall I cling to this world until I fade to a shadow?"

Maedhros opened and closed his hand. His metal hand, created to replace the one he had lost. "I will forge you a new body to house your spirit. It will be imperishable. We will find a way."

Fingon imagined it. Some construct of mithril and steel, crystal and adamant, a living armour that wore him instead of the other way around. He shivered at the hubris of it. Bodiless, but reembodied by elvish hands and elvish arts. Just as Fëanor had captured the light of the Trees within the Silmarils. Surely it was a blasphemy, to keep the spirit anchored here beyond the lifetime of the body. Surely it went against the divine order of the universe. Defying the decree of the Valar. Defying the will of Ilúvatar.

_It cannot end here._

He had already refused the summons to the Halls of Mandos. He had already crossed half a world for the sake of his dearest kin.

They said the great flaw of the Noldor was their pride. But perhaps equal to that was their love.

"My heart abides with you," Fingon said. "Until the end of days."


End file.
